Temius
by ravenchel
Summary: Temius; akin to Latin temetum - intoxicating drink. (A Crouch Jr. story)


Each time, when he wakes up, it's like coming out of a warm place, a womb; his eyes thick and hungry. Bulgaria has scored but really all that matters is the wand. Slender, eleven-inches; he can almost taste the mahogany on his tongue, sliding and clacking against his molars he wants it so badly. It's safely tucked up the sleeve of his shirt later as he's dragged through the forest with his knees practically giving out the entire way.  
  
It takes sheer force of will to cast the Mordesmore, underbrush licking at his thighs and braches crisscrossed overhead in an intricate web of bark and chlorophyll. The stars shine though the paper-thin green foliage until he believes he can see their chemical structure as the spell shoots through.  
  
Ten years in Azkaban and he's still as neat and precise as a pin. Perfect hair, perfect shirt and perfect aim. And when the stunning spell hits him he falls in a perfect line, not even wrinkling the Invisibility cloak.  
  
You might go crazy in Azkaban, and you might grow void and empty and become nothing, but he never thinks that's an excuse for sloppiness. Every morning he spends and hour pressing pleats into his prison robes with nimble fingers, straight lines following the bones in his legs. Then he scrapes at the dirt of the floor with the sole of his shoe, trying to keep the little piles together. This one is Mother and this one is Father and he stomps on Father every morning and has to pile him up again at night.  
  
They give you a cot, pushed back into the far corner, with a mattress the dust mites are eating alive. He knows when a Dementor is coming because he hears the screams. High-pitched and frenzied from about five cells away. He never screams, and neither does the man across from him. Dog, he should note. Mostly dog. They have conversations with their eyes because they've allowed their voices to go useless, and he knows this man is very much like him. But he leaves first, and he can smell the jealousy covering him like a thick winter cloak as he slides past the bars.  
  
The first good taste Barty had in ten years was the Polyjuice. It tasted like home, like midnight meetings and finely woven robes and marks burned into his flesh. Home. That creeping feeling of his new skin sliding into place, stretching and restrectching; the restructuring of bones like puzzles clicking into place.  
  
Imperius is a fog and usually slow moving, but sometimes consciousness hits him full-on like a searchlight, so overpowering that it disorients him.  
  
"Stay here. Eat your dinner, son."  
  
The 'no' is dangling on the tip of his tongue, behind the curse, the denial of any relation to that man he was taught to call Father. Then it slips away, under a cloud and behind the mist until the next time he wakes up and he's in bed and he can really feel the tickle of the cotton against his chin for the first time in years. It ebbs and flows, tides washing over his head and drowning him until he's gasping for air so desperately that every breath becomes precious, savored and remembered hours later, that moment he could think his own thoughts again -- of his master, only his master. The memories are what trigger it all, what lets him realize he can break free. If he can remember and chooses to remember, then he can control and force and twist and break this mold until he's remembering all the time. One step further and he's really living again.  
  
*  
  
Tom was so weak when he finally came back to him. Weak in form but powerful in mind, and as beautiful as he last remembered him; not at all like he really looks but how Barty knows him to look. Elegant and eighteen, eyes like heavy coals and hair like satin.  
  
They're alone in the bedroom, Wormtail watching Father in the downstairs antechamber. It's a Sunday, Barty knows this even though he's just regaining his sense of time, and today Tom is solid enough to stroke the hair away from his eyes.  
  
"Are you ready to risk everything for me?"  
  
*  
  
No one ever expects a Ravenclaw. Not true; no one ever expects a Hufflepuff, but then even a Hufflepuff doesn't expect a Hufflepuff.  
  
*  
  
Bartemius spends his first summer after Hogwarts in Paris. He hates it, absolutely hates it with a passion only matched by others of his generation longing for something beyond what was handed to them on a silver tray. The whole summer Bartemius has an itch, crawling up his thighs and over his stomach and curling around his throat, slipping down his left arm until it stops, concentrates, and at night he's practically peeling off layer upon layer of skin. Like something's trying to poke though him, overtake him from the inside.  
  
There's a street he's taken to walking, late at night, along the Seine's left bank. Cobblestones keep his feet from falling evenly and he watches lovers kissing under streetlights and wants nothing more than to push them into the icy waters. Muggles. This whole city is filled with Muggles, littering its streets with their love and their filth. Equal parts of each, both disgusting. Boys his age and younger make eyes at him from alleyways and he ignores it. The only eyes he's seeking are a brilliant charcoal, writing out history in deep, dramatic marks.  
  
He finds a sallow boy instead, with eyes like wet dirt and honey. A schoolmate he never really knew who reached over at a small café and passed him a card with a drawing of a snake and an address. He followed him there that night, listened and when the train arrived to take him back to his Ministry job in the fall, Bartemius was already halfway to Germany.  
  
*  
  
Tom is beautiful because Bartemius wants to see that beauty. He's beautiful himself, of course. Shock of sandy hair and straight-line features. He's classically attractive and has an appreciation for glamour; it's his specialty. He achieves it by Polyjuice only, no matter how much he wants Tom's gifts he'll never have them. The same drive in both of them, though. To disassociate from a man that shares their name, from a face too like their own. But Barty can't brew. It's his one pitfall, and he's never allowed to forget that. He's only as strong as his weakest point. Tom appoints Severus to be Bartemuis's strength.  
  
*  
  
The others watch him as they prepare to go into the chamber. Another role, and when the Dementors throw him into the chair he's sobbing and screaming and begging his father for his life. The others promised to stay silent; if he can get himself off the others will have to go as well. His father has cold eyes, even colder than his mothers and he thinks this could be the end. Only it's not. Snape is watching him from the first row but he won't even look that way. It's just another role, and Snape isn't part of the game anymore.  
  
*  
  
"Pass me the crushed black beetles."  
  
Their fingers brush like they have a thousand times before, over a thousand other cauldrons, and it's a far cry from innocent. Tonight Barty's going to find them a traitor, but they need to always think two steps ahead: brew a batch for next month before heading out for the night. It's as thick and bulbous as always but Snape brews so expertly that nary a hair is out of color, every line and wrinkle is exact in the transformation.  
  
Barty makes right angles with the floor when he goes down to his knees, a sweeping movement of cloak and joints. He makes quick work of the buttons and Snape is clutching the table white-knuckled in seconds. It only takes a few minutes, they're so young. They'll always be like this, Barty thinks. Young and changing the world. He's learned to swallow quickly and keep things neat and tidy, straighten himself back up in time to hand Snape the first beaker with a quiet smile. He thinks of this all as a transformation, every movement of his body and the tensing of muscles under skin are ways of transforming. Not masks, but roles.  
  
*  
  
Learning Moody is more enjoyable than other transformations. The magical eye especially; he thinks he might keep it once he returns to his masters side, just for sport.  
  
Moody's a slow one, that's a small pitfall. In his old bones Barty has trouble rushing down to the forest to take care of Father. But he makes it, his sharp mind still in tact and the ache in his false bones making the transfiguration of the body into a little joke. And though he shouldn't linger he takes the time to spit on the crude grave twice for good measure.  
  
*  
  
Meeting Neville is truly a surprise. The baby mewing in the bassinet all grown up, or practically so, and trembling with fear in Moody's class. Barty loves fear, especially if he's created it. He loves to nurse it, prod it and collect it; make it useful. He gives the boy tea and book and sets things into motion.  
  
There's nothing better than fear when it's used correctly. Severus, a perfect example. He's watched the man bend and twist and scream and cry his name in perfect desired agony over and over again, but nothing is better than watching Snape stammer, crumble and fall and truly fear him.  
  
He goes through the store rooms looking for nothing at all, only to know that Snape is standing nearby and not realizing what he's seeing. In the back of his mind Barty wonders if Snape remembers his mouth, if he could push him back against the stone and it would be like twenty years ago all over again.  
  
He catches Snape in the hallways with Potter and wants to kill them both, one fail swoop, but he's under orders. Strict orders.  
  
Because if Moody hates anything it's a Death Eater who got away; and Barty hates a disloyal Death Eater. Snape is both and Snape tricked him. Him who spent most of his life tricking every person he's ever met. Nothing's more infuriating than being played at your own game. So he's playing a new game now. The thunk-thunk of his fake wooden leg resounds like the ticking of a clock counting down his triumph. Third task, third task, third task.  
  
He can't see how it could all come crashing down. 


End file.
